“His wife,” Mason said, “wasn’t living here with him. She’d been living with her sister. Her clothes weren’t the ones which were taken from those hangers... Hello, what’s this?”
The beam of his flashlight reflected from a rounded strip of wood enameled and polished to a high brilliance. The bit of wood was perhaps an inch and a half in length, splintered at both ends and partially curved.
Drake inspected the piece of wood and said, “A piece of wood from a molding somewhere. He probably—”
Mason abruptly dropped to his knees, sent the beam from the flashlight sliding along the floor. “Look for splintered pieces of glass, Paul,” he said. “See if you can find—”
“Here’s one,” Drake said, picking up a small fragment of glass.
“And here’s another,” Mason told him.
“What’s the idea?” Drake said. “Do you think there’s been a fight here, or—”
Mason said, “Let’s take a look at the garbage can on the service porch, Paul.”
Drake said, “Listen, Perry, I don’t like this. I don’t know what you’re getting at, but we’re going at this thing all wrong. We’re—”
Mason walked toward the service porch, taking the flashlight with him. Drake, perforce, followed, Mason lifted the lid from the garbage can, took out several opened tin cans, some halves of orange peel, then a long sliver of glass. “We’re on the right track, Paul,” he said, and a moment later handed-up a long, curved segment of enameled, rounded wood.